84 BOULDER REVERIES. 



tire each eve. In winter they scatter more 

 widely in search of food, but no legal holidays, 

 no weeks or months labeled with the appella- 

 tion of some Christian or heathen saint or sinner 

 is theirs to remember or to record the passing 

 of time. Only the approach of the spring sol- 

 stice, only the awakening of the mating instinct 

 by the beams of the northward moving sun, 

 serves them as a reminder of the flight of time. 



I like to loll on the very edge of a towering 

 cliff, to note the trees as they lean over as if 

 gazing into the depths below the shrubs as they 

 cling to crevice and cranny the herbs as they 

 eke out a scanty subsistence from the decaying 

 rocks. Afar off in the valley beneath a stream 

 meanders slowly onward, fed by a spring which 

 gushes up in the rocks. There shadows fall and 

 sunshine glitters, while far above, I, a bit of 

 matter, possessed of the senses of sight, hearing 

 and smell, gaze and listen and sniff the air, 

 seeking for something, not human, o'er which to 

 ponder. 



The cliff on which I now rest, not far from 

 my gray boulders, is not towering nor difficult 



